Taker

Having no one wasn’t new.

He’d actually been more surprised, about sixty days in, when he’d noticed how much he hadn’t had to change. Hunger was normal; so were potholes and lice and dirty air.

And tagging.

Maybe that’s what had changed the most, really – he used to tag dumb shit on stop signs and bathroom stalls, had since forever. Spent more time on scratching weird made-up stuff into laminate desks than he ever spent at a home. He liked sharpies too, but he’d liked the way Aniyah glanced at his X-Acto back then.

Now he favored Krylon. Nice nozzle, good control, and in easy supply up here. He’d got ten more neon colors at the “World’s Largest Truck Stop” crossing into Iowa. Took up thirty minutes of flashlight battery walking around there, but he’d liked looking at what the nuclears used to buy their 2.5 kids on their way to Rushmore: “The S’more The Merrier” signs and “Let’s Travel The World” stickers with cartoon globes, and racks and cases of cheap jewelry.

But now, now he tagged something new. He kinda liked it. Maybe liked it too much, for a grown-ass man, but whatever. He didn’t need to pull out the cheap silver necklace for reference anymore, he just shook the can and swooped it just right into that particular heart shape, with chains up top, a hinge on the side, and a sunflower in one hump. Well… shaped like a sunflower anyway, but right now he was using fluorescent green.

He shadowed right across the middle with the last bit left in that can, then outlined in black what he’d been writing about once a week for a long while now:

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

GIVE WHAT YOU DON’T

He especially liked the way he swooped the apostrophe at the end, like the stem of a cherry. God he missed cherries, shoulda bought some that last summer.

A dirty fall breeze blew a bit of acetone up his nose and he sneezed. Wiped it on his canvas jacket, and spit, but not directly ahead. Directly ahead were the two boxes he’d gathered. They were filled mostly with canned stuff this time, but he’d found a few extra kitchen knives and kid’s clothes too, all bundled up together in some old fruit boxes.

He didn’t know why he did it, really. It was just something to do.

Most folk ran south when the grids broke, fast as wheels could take them. What was left was mostly rust buckets and EVs, but he’d still snagged a modded H-D Low Rider without too much trouble. A foster had taught him how to ride one summer, forever ago. Dirt bikes, mostly, but he adapted.

He got back on his ride. The crack in the seat dug into his thigh, even through his two denim layers, but he’d had shit luck finding duct tape again. Maybe he’d be luckier in the next ghost town.

Actually, he had a full tank right now. Almost 200 miles before he’d have to start sucking at semi tanks again. Didn’t matter how often he did that… he never got better at it. Could still taste it in his molars when he thought about it too hard.

But he wasn’t traveling that far tonight. The sun would be setting soon, setting earlier every night now. He went looking for a shed instead, maybe a barn, something all by itself for acres and acres. Safest that way.

It wasn’t ten minutes out before he saw his first bit of life in weeks. High plywood walls around an old center of some kind, maybe a gym. Probably a gym from the lights he could see in its high windows, fluorescent and mostly lit. The bit of gate at the entrance had barbed wire across, but it was open right now, a few people around.

He stopped his bike for a second, and as it idled he could hear loud generators in there, echoing their way out across the empty freeway between them.

He looked at them, and they looked at him. He thought, for the hundredth time over fourteen states, maybe he could just pop over. Maybe tell them about the boxes.

He didn’t though; never had, not once. Hadn’t ever fit in in any gym anyway, skipped that class every time. He scratched at his beard, then applied the throttle and took off again.

He found a shed. A lean-to, really, old and white-washed by years of sun, but he liked them open better anyway; easier to keep an eye on his bike through the night. He kicked away a few rocks, pulled off his pack for a pillow, and settled. Honestly, too lazy to make a fire all the damn time now that propane was an old memory, so he cut open a can of chili and ate it cold like that. ‘One can a day’ he’d said when he first started all this, and that’s what he stuck to. Maybe he’d be lucky and that’d work for a long while yet. He didn’t really care either way.

---

Getting snuck up on, though, that was new.

How it happened, he still wasn’t sure, but in the full moon he could see them: three guys, maybe four, all younger than him, all decked out in leather, and one hit him in the arm with an old pipe. That’s what woke him, his arm. Then some were kicking, and one was sitting on his seat like he was trying to figure out how to start the damn thing.

They yelled, and he yelled, and he was lucky to get on his feet and a hand in his trousers to pull out a Colt 1911 before the kid with the pipe could swing again. He fired one into the dirt and the sound echoed across the empty prairie like thunder. They took off, piling into a Jeep Wrangler with highway signs welded on the sides. That engine started, then his engine started, and he watched all six wheels drive away without him. He put the Colt back in his pants. It would be useless in just his left hand anyway, though honestly he was no good with his right either, even if his arm wasn’t broken.

Oh God. His arm was broken.

He looked up high, high up at the brightest bit of sky. That milky river running right through black hills, moon bright as the spotlights he used to watch at night in Vegas. Everything blurred for a bit, which surprised him; thought he was too dehydrated for all that, clean water an old memory all summer long, mouth and knuckles cracking in the heat, dark skin soaking up rays like tarmac.

He tried to tell himself this wasn’t new. A broken arm would have killed him last year too. But he just…

He’d never associated himself with hearts before; not once in his whole damn life had a heart meant anything to him. He’d stolen that for himself this year, while no one was looking. He’d really wanted to paint more of them. Had a whole map in his head.

But it was just something to do.

Besides, his left hand was useless, always had been. Like having a third foot at the end of his arm. He’d never teach it to spray, even if he got the chance to.

He was going to die. But he was too stupid to just roll over and do it now, so he picked up his pack and started walking. It was miles back to those shops, but maybe he’d make it. Maybe he’d wrap up in that broken awning and eat the can of peaches he’d been saving and look at what he’d made by moonlight. Bet it fluoresced better at night anyway.

---

It was definitely full-on fall now. Had to be. Everything was freezing cold, even the dirty, smoggy air that blew right through him, right through his ancient combat boots, even, and how was that possible? It seemed like every bit of gravel on the road was going through him too, could feel it in his arm, throbbing, shaking, and biting like nails.

---

"You’ll have to sit up.”

The generators. They were much louder up close. When had he gotten so close? It wasn’t like he just woke up, because his eyes were already open, looking up at fluorescent lights on a high ceiling. He took a breath to – but he just coughed instead. Had to sit up, and his back barely managed it.

There were people everywhere, dozens of them, and a man standing right over him, looking down. Older than him. Maybe he was still young.

“Here, take it, son. No, with your left hand.”

He took it. A bright pink Hydro Flask with a letter G sequined on the side, scratched and missing a few plastic jewels. His left arm shook as he brought it to dry lips and swallowed. Just water, tasting like rusty pipes, like mana probably does.

He swallowed again, and looked around, but the man was gone. He looked at his arm. It was straight, all the way to his shoulder, wrapped up in strips of cream fabric and two long, narrow pieces of thin metal sheeting that popped out near his fingers. He couldn’t bend it. He could feel it, though, throbbing in there, but less now that bones were lined back up like soldiers.

He didn’t dare stand up, didn’t dare move, sitting on a wrestling mat covered by a threadbare beach towel on the gym floor. Things were getting blurry again.

Not too blurry and not too loud to not hear people coming this time, though.

He heard it, more foreign than the roar of the generators or someone calling him ‘son’: the slap of small feet, a whole herd of them. It was definitely a herd, the way they ran through like the buffalo he saw sometimes now, driving down empty highways at dawn, day after day. And like a herd one or two always broke off, always shifted from following to leading and back again, and this one pulled to a stop not too far from him. Looking.

The girl, she was probably, what, five? Pudgy little thing with long black hair and tan, tan skin. She just looked at him, and he looked back.

And he didn’t know why he did it, other than maybe that’s why he’d taken it from that truck stop in the first place; taken it as a living hope that maybe he’d be able to give it away, someday. He pulled the locket out, a bit grimy from the miles in his jean pocket, and tossed it towards her. The chain rattled as it dragged across the waxed hardwood floor, drifting to a stop by her socked toe. She picked it up and ran away.

That… wasn’t half bad, really. That was definitely new.

“You can thank the Taker for this.”

He looked up. It was a woman this time, younger than him, but maybe older too. She looked it, in her eyes. She offered a canteen mug. It was hot, hot like he hadn’t touched in weeks, months. He breathed, shaky, raspy, and squeezed out from deep inside, “Huh?”

“I said you can thank the Taker; he must have just drifted through here, still heading West. Left that himself last night. Can’t hardly believe it. It was marked just like they say on ARRL.”

He looked down at the mug. It was filled to the brim with beef stew. Armour brand, he could tell. One of his favorites, but he’d left a few in a box yesterday, hoping to share the taste.

Another woman nearby, she was talking to the old man and showing him something silver in her hand, the pudgy girl clinging to her leg. They both looked up, at him.

Pretty soon everyone else did too. They all looked.

He looked back.